Good morning folks! Long time, no blogging. I hope everyone had a tremendous summer and is now primed and ready for hockey season, and more importantly, the 2009-2010 edition of the the New York Rangers.
To get started, I wanted to point out a guest blog I contributed to PuckCentral.net that talked about the team’s keys to success this season. Here’s a sample of what I wrote:
It might turn out that the answers to questions about this year’s Blueshirts might actually be the keys to their success. With that in mind, let’s take a look at just a few of the questions and how there answers can determine the fate of the 2009-2010 Rangers.
Question: Will Marian Gaborik remain healthy for the entire season?
Answer: In a lot of Rangers’ fans hearts, this is the main question that fans want answered and they want it answered well. When healthy, Gaborik can be a dominant player. In just 17 games last season, Gaborik posted 23 points in 17 games and for his career, has 437 points in 502 games. He’s got tremendous speed, a quick release, not afraid to take the puck to the net, and can help out on the power play.
While that’s great, it’s not going to matter if he ends up spending half the season injured. In 2006-07, he played 48 games. As mentioned above, he played in just 23 games last season and he hasn’t played remotely close to a full season since the 2007-08 season when he played in 77 games. Again, if he’s healthy, he will put a lot of points up on the board. If he’s not, Ranger fans will once again be clamoring for Sather’s head.
Question: How will the team’s power play look?
Answer: As I’m sure many of you knowledgeable Ranger fans know, the team’s power play last season was awful. They had trouble getting the puck to the net, they passed the puck more often than they shot it and they constantly looked for the perfect play, which was never there. Normally, most teams like to keep it simple on the power play and that usually results in quality scoring chances and goals. However, last year’s Rangers failed to generate much of both.
Going into this season, both Sather and head coach John Tortorella believe that the club’s power play will be much improved. Sather and Co. are hoping that by having a healthy Gaborik, newly acquired Ales Kotalik, hard worker Christopher Higgins and maybe some help on the point from 25-year-old defenseman Matt Gilroy or even someone like Bobby Sanguinetti or Michael Del Zotto, the power play will come out of the cellar and be one of the top team’s in that area.
It’ll certainly be a process and there will be lots of experimenting by Tortorella but one has to think “can it really get much worse?”
Click here for more and let us know what you think.
My Ranger brothers from what I read this morning Gaborik already isn’t 100%. Staying out of skating and running drills. The whole deal stinks as far as I’m concerned. How do you hang the fortunes or an entire season on the shoulders of a man who is off the ice much more than he plays??? Instead of Gaborik I would have put my money with Heatly. At least we know Heatly will score 40 goals and maybe 50 a few times within his contract. I’ll take a head case over damaged goods any day of the week. With Gaborik we have to hope he plays 50 games!!! And to tell you the truth I very much doubt that he will play 50 games this year or any other year with the BlueShirts. The only good thing that can possibly come out of that deal is that Sather should be fired. If I ever, ever did my job like Sather does his I would be unemployed for a decade now! I like that we’ll see lots of young talent get a chance and I wonder who will take most advantage of Gaborik’ s injuries the next 5 years. I say it will be Grachev. By the time we cut ties with infirmary man Grachev should be a star. Maybe Anisimov as well. Maybe an unknown. At any rate any Ranger fan who thinks Gaborik is coming here to light it up for 80 games and be injury free all of a sudden is in as much of a coma as Sather is! Hey I will love this team till the end forever. I have been losing my voice over this team since Villemuere teamed with Giacomin. I say Messier needs to find the talent. I say he knows what it takes to win in this league better than anyone else in the organization. He knows the qualities it takes and he can recognize if a young player has it or not. I trust Messier to do what’s right for this team. And I do not have the same trust in Sather. For 10 years now I’m scratching my head wondering how this stogie packing fool ever did what he did in Edmonton???? Never mind I can’t think of the past. Now we’ve got to think of the Rangers future and please dear god make it a future without Sather. He sucked when he came over from the Bruins as a player and he’s 100 times worse as a GM. Too bad we couldn’t get Burke to come here and run this team. Anything but this dope Sather. Messier we turn our lonely eyes to you Dear Captain please help us!